LogFAQs > #956701998

ArvTheGreat posted...

what kinda health concern is it Arvs not buying the mental part because this is what shes been training for all her life

A huge part of gymnastics training is learning where your body is in space and how to keep track of that, even while spinning rapidly in multiple axes (since vision is largely useless for that). Every now and then, though, for reasons nobody completely understand (but it seems to be more common under stress), the brain will just lose that ability (commonly called "the twisties" among gymnasts and divers), reverting to its pre-training state and sometimes requiring months or years of training to recover it. Naturally, this can be extremely dangerous, because not being able to keep track of how much spinning you've done can make the difference between landing on your feet and landing on your head. There are many gymnasts throughout history that have tried to power through twisties, usually for a major competition, and ended up paralyzed for life (which, in several of those cases, meant ~6-10 more minutes after the landing).

In Biles' case, she was 1.5 spins through a 2.5-spin trick she was practicing, and she suddenly lost all sense of where the ground was. She managed to land it safely, but rather than pushing herself to compete in the Olympics (which involves many demanding jumps that would be extremely dangerous to attempt while so impaired), she opted to withdraw for safety's sake.

Ultimately, this should be seen as an injury that's keeping her from being able to compete safely. It's a mental injury, which means it's a lot harder to understand than a physical one, but she should be receiving no more backlash than if she decided not to compete after breaking her leg.

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